a crooked house

Just makes me think of various topographic and simulated reality horror scenarios.  Situations where world doesn't work at all like you think it does.

• Mage - Paradox realms and Digital Web.
• Call of Cthulhu - Carcosa manifesting via AR & VR games.
• Unknown Armies - A new otherspace.

Sixgun: Tales from an Unfolded Earth

Sixgun - Surreal-noir from a world where reality is broken.

Ideas
Mage: the Ascension - Paradox realms.

Chthonians in Guatemala

Cement Surroundings are no defense.

Via Boing Boing, via the Guatemalan government's Flicker feed.

Gone to Sleep

Moby and Kelli Scarr make a song based on this picture by artist Phil Toledano.


The video about their creation process (and the song itself) gives a great vibe of eerie desolation.




Author's note: the first night I watched this it inspired a fascinating nightmare about Changeling: the Lost's "Gentry", so I'm considering it prime fodder for that game at least.

Basilisk Images

Exerpt from the comp.basilisk FAQ:

5. How does a basilisk operate?

The short answer is: we mustn't say. Detailed information is classified beyond Top Secret.

The longer answer is based on a popular-science article by Berryman (New Scientist, 2001), which outlines his thinking. He imagined the human mind as a formal, deterministic computational system -- a system that, as predicted by a variant of Gödel's Theorem in mathematics, can be crashed by thoughts which the mind is physically or logically incapable of thinking. The Logical Imaging Technique presents such a thought in purely visual form as a basilisk image which our optic nerves can't help but accept. The result is disastrous, like a software stealth-virus smuggled into the brain.


6. Why "basilisk"?

It's the name of a mythical creature: a reptile whose mere gaze can turn people to stone. According to ancient myth, a basilisk can be safely viewed in a mirror. This is not generally true of the modern version -- although some highly asymmetric basilisks like B-756 are lethal only in unreflected or reflected form, depending on the dominant hemisphere of the victim's brain.

- David Langford

Chronotron

Don't be fooled by the cartoonish artistry and lack of fire-arms: This game is a vital training tool for any agent likely to be mucking around with the nightmare that is causality violation.

It will re-wire your brain.


Via Diggy Games and Newgrounds.

Tangible Holograms

A little something for the deckers and Virtual Adepts out there:

Holograms with physical interaction made possible through motion capture technology combined with precisely focused ultrasonic sound waves to stimulate the sense of touch.


More via Core 77.

Paradox Realm of Finance

After successfully over-leveraging his assets by several orders of magnitude, a Syndicate Technocrat stumbles into his first Paradox Realm.


Alternate explanations:

• Arcadian Realm
• Otherspace
• Hastur Incursion
• Nightmare Realm

Via Dirty Russia.

Bachelorette (Utena version)

Utena - Bjork (bachelorette)
by bangayo

I see this as a Fairest Durance, or a love affair involving Sidhe or Marauders.

Editorial:

Revolutionary Girl Utena the series was a fascinating, if repetitive, set of highly stylized vignettes. It involved a series of staged and structured confrontations at a boarding school each culminating in a sword fight. The ultimate goal of these confrontations to catalyze the metaphysical alteration of reality on a grand scale.

Revolutionary Girl Utena the movie was a completely surreal, bordering on nonsensicle farce involving the same characters and setting as the series. To those who've never seen the series, the movie will make no sense. To those who have seen the series, the movie will make little more sense.

However, one good thing did come out of the movie: Some industrious person recut the most interesting bits and pieced them together with bits of the series into a slightly more cohesive narrative. Setting the whole thing to Bjork's Bachelorette made it dynamite.

Limbo

A young mortal protagonist trying to navigate one of those strange, bleak realms found in Wraith, Mage: the Ascension, or either of the Changeling games. Alternately, an otherworldly locale from Unknown Armies.

Better video and some concept art at the official site here.

Cult-reviving politician killed by lightning

Reposted from Mosnews:

A Ukrainian politician who had been excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church for his attempts to revive ancient pagan cult was killed by lightning on Saturday while on a fishing trip, Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda reported on Monday.

. . .

A former activist in the Soviet youth movement Comsomol, Chervoni started an independent political career in early 1990s with radical Ukrainian nationalists. At some point, the politician joined the religious movement Runvera – a Ukrainian sect that seeks revival of obscure ancient cults, in particular, the worship of the sun god Dazhbog.

When he was retired from the governor’s post in 2006, all Orthodox churches in Rovno Region had a special prayer thanking the Lord for deliverance.

This story was trawled up by the Delta Green folks who had the obvious take that, in the name of nationalist cultic revival, this guy had been dredging up ancient powers best left forgotten.

But from a World of Darkness point of view he might just as easily have been fried by the Technocracy before he could use his newly acquired reality deviant abilities to revive yet another brand of superstitionist practice among the masses. Simple Paradox backlash wouldn't be out of the question either.

Via Tenebrax on the Delta Green mailing list.

Bottled Curios

Unknown Specimen

RECOVERED FROM CHEST CAVITY OF DECAYED ANIMATED CORPSE. ANIMATION OF CORPSE CEASED UPON REMOVAL. SPECIMEN BEGAN TO DISSOLVE WITHIN MOMENTS OF REMOVAL FROM HOST. DISSOLUTION CEASED WITH FORMALDEHYDE AND ACETONE. HAITI, 1894

A handy how-to guide on preparing your own spell components, containing unruly familiars, and formalin-preserving other oddities.


Link.

Paradox-free Mouse

Finally a mouse custom-made for the Magi of House Thig.

More steampunk/arcana projects and cephalopod pics at the artist's website.

Nature's Wrath

A spirit of wilderness and desolation lashes out with impotent rage at the highway desecrating it's land.

Or, alternately: The last remaining eddy of excess energy released by a powerful ritual in the area.


Via Nothing To Do With Arbroath, by way of Boing Boing.

In Crystal Abiding

Blue crystal everywhere. The apartment's interior was completely covered with the stuff.

What ritual needed this as a focus?
What arcane process gone awry left this in it's wake?
What bizarre thing, new to sentience, dwelt here in dark mineral-saturated waters for a time? Or left this residue behind, a spent chrysalis?

Article and video here.


Via Boingboing.

Giacattoli Ray Guns

Sean Michael Ragan provides an insightful commentary the toy ray gun designs of Edision Giacattoli. Some great pictures of beautifully designed futuristic weaponry here. Check it out:

Link.


Via Boingboing.